The Habit of Art: A Play Read Online Free Page A

you!
    Carpenter ( throws a black look at Henry ) Benjamin Britten is in Oxford today.
    Auden says nothing.
    Auditioning choirboys. You worked together?
    Auden still says nothing.
    In the thirties?
    Auden I know when it was. Why?
    Carpenter I wondered whether there was a programme in it. You and him, collaborating.
    Auden That would come under impertinence, I think. My business not yours, though collaborate we did and very happy it was, too.
    On the upper stage Britten is at the piano with a chapel acoustic. A boy standing beside him sings a verse from ‘The Shepherd’s Carol’ ( ‘O lift your little pinkie and touch the evening sky / Love’s all over the mountains where the beautiful go to die’ ).
    Britten ( over song ) Don’t make it sound too polite. ‘O lift your little pinkie.’ Good. Very good. ( Music ends. )
    Boy Um, sir, what does ‘pinkie’ mean? Is it rude?
    Britten No. I wouldn’t ask you to sing it if it were. It’s what Americans call the little finger. Happy?
    Boy Sir.
    Britten Let’s try it again and just make the consonants clear.
    Fades.
    Carpenter That afternoon in 1972 I had gone to interview Auden in Oxford at the Brewhouse in Christ Church, an outbuilding of the college converted into lodgings for one of its most distinguished sons. Spool back half an hour and I am waiting outside with my tape recorder ready to interview the great poet. Only he’s not here…just a couple cleaning his rooms.
    Kay And Henry is reading Boyle and I’m reading May.
    Author Why?
    Kay Because Penny and Brian are in the Chekhov matinee.
    Auden’s scout, Mr Boyle, in shirtsleeves and apron, though with collar and tie, is making ritual and ineffectual attempts to tidy the room that is both messy and bleak. Boyle played by Henry, May by Kay.
    Boyle is expressionless, emptying ash from various receptacles into a bucket.
    Boyle Jesus Christ!
    I was in the Western Desert.
    Tobruk.
    Ben-fucking-ghazi.
    Where were you, Mr Auden?
    May, a middle-aged woman, has come on in outdoor coat and shopping bag.
    Boyle picks up a mouldy soup bowl and shows it to May. She picks up a cloth.
    May Dishcloth?
    Boyle His vest…
    Boyle takes the vest, puts it by the sink and retrieves a pair of trousers that are plainly smelly.
    May Canon Claude’s were the same.
    Boyle Canon Claude was eighty-five.
    May ( referring to soup bowl ) I’ll rinse that out.
    Boyle I wouldn’t. Where do you think he pees?
    She smells the basin as Boyle puts the trousers in the bedroom.
    May The dirty bugger.
    Boyle What I’d like to know is where does he wash his hands after he has washed his hands.
    Not that he makes a secret of it.
    They were all in Common Room last week after Founder’s Dinner, sitting down to their port and Madeira, walnuts and whatnot. There’s the silver out and the candles and the wine’s going round and the chocolates. At which point our friend turns to the Waynflete Professor of Moral Philosophy and asks him if he pees in the basin. And when he says he doesn’t he says, ‘I don’t believe you.’ This is the Waynflete Professor of Moral Philosophy. ‘I don’t believe you.’ He says, ‘Well, I pee in the basin. Everybody does.’ One night – because it’s happened several times – one night it’s the Vice Chancellor he’s asking where he does his wee-wees.
    And he’s got another topic in the same department. Toilet paper.
    May Toilet paper?
    Boyle He’s got it into his head that nobody should use more than one piece of toilet paper.
    May What for? He must be nicely off. One sheet of toilet paper. What must his underpants be like?
    Boyle Mrs Ridsdale. There may not be underpants.
    A knock.
    Boyle doesn’t answer.
    Another knock and then the door cautiously opens.
    Stuart Hello?
    It’s a young man, who comes in tentatively smiling.
    Mr – ( He looks at a piece of paper. ) Mr Auden? ( Which he pronounces Owden. )
    Boyle Auden. Why?
    Stuart I’m supposed to be here at ten past. On the dot.
    Boyle So you’re